I think 3 things are universally true in all struggling romantic/friend/colleague relationships (note: I did not include parent-child relationships as those do not fully apply to what I'm about to say):
1) We all have a tendency to over-focus on the other person's contribution to the disharmony, and a tendency to struggle with clearly observing and taking accountability for our own contribution.
2) Conversations are going way too fast, leaping forward, thinking about retorts, emotions hijacking true presence and accurate listening.
Communication is too full of past pain, present misattunment and dysregulation, and misassumptions/ misconclusions about past/present/future.
There is a lot of struggle here around slowing down enough and self regulating enough to add spaciousness and curiosity and attunement back in to the space.
3) Somewhere, somehow, all parties have stopped feeling safe in the relationship and in conversations about the relationship. If we’re being honest, it doesn’t feel safe to self-disclose, safe to share needs, feelings, truths, and desires. It doesn’t feel safe to HEAR what our partner has to say. Practices around reclaiming and regaining safety that don’t outsource safety to your partner(s) are, shall I say, not a bad idea.
As a practitioner, these three areas are critical to triage when working with partnerships or individuals around relating.
And, as annoying as it is to us hyper-independent or hyper-self-aware types, the first two areas I mentioned are almost impossible to navigate without a practitioner or skilled, neutral, third party. They are certainly more difficult. If you are hellbent on doing it without support, item 3 becomes even more important.
(For parents - if this tracks, please feel free to apply it to yourself. The place where it is not ok to apply it is to your children. What we can expect from children generally is not the same as what we can expect from an adult peer. There is nuance here and this post does not have space for the nuance, so please err on the side of caution.)
PS: My coaching peers Erin and Mike of Pomegranate Coaching & Mediation are offering a 6 week course on Collaborative Conflict which could be a low-risk way for you and your partner(s) to gain new insights and skills around conflict and around the universal relational potholes this post calls out.
I highly recommend Erin & Mike - check out the course info + registration.
(I also did a podcast episode with them about conflict - check it out here!)
PPS: This could be a whole other post but I’ll just tack it on here. Relating is EMOTIONAL. Very emotional. The MOST emotional area of life. (I love how I’m being very confident about my generalizations in this post lol - that’s rare.)
If we struggle with feeling certain emotions, expressing certain emotions, or feeling safe and in control around certain emotions, this will impact both our ability and willingness to relate.
Relating to our emotions more skillfully and safely is something we can work on as well that will have massive impacts on our relationships.
PPPS: Speaking of relationships being hard and emotional, one of my favorite quotes from the recent podcast episode with Lena McCain of Interfaith Bridge Counseling is about our relationship with MONEY and the (almost) inherent dysregulation there. I love how the quote NORMALIZES dysregulation but then empowers us to not get stuck there:
“It’s ok to get dysregulated around money - and then model how you’re going to manage that.”
Listening links for the whole episode with Lena can be found here.
If you’re looking for a coach who is:
trauma-informed,
has multiple certifications and is continually professionally training/learning
radically neuroaffirming, neurodivergence-informed,
specializes in parenting, relating/relationships, and money,
skillful with self-sabotage and nervous system safety,
equally a neuroscience geek and a professionally trained astrologer-human design analyst,
doing the work themselves
you have found them!
I can’t wait for you to be surprised and thrilled at how fun and effective our work together is. Want to chat more? Book a free 30min info call.